OKTOBERFEST!!

Last weekend, I travelled to Munich, Germany for the biggest and craziest beer festival on Earth: Oktoberfest!! On Friday morning, I woke up bright and early at 3:30AM to finish packing and catch the first metro of the day to meet up with Kirsten and Virginia and head to the airport. I slept through most of our flight and when I woke up we had landed in Germany! We met up with Devon and Taylor who were on the same flight as us and managed to figure out the Munich public transportation to get to Stoke campsite where we stayed for the weekend. Stoke has campsites all over the world and is known as a fun place for young travellers to meet other people and party! As soon as we arrived at the campsite and were checking in, we were brought glasses of sangria. It was awesome! We got all settled into our tent and planned to do a free walking tour of Munich that the campsite offered. But somehow, they left without us, so we got some more sangria and hung out at the campsite for a couple of hours. We met tons of people from all over the world who were also studying abroad in Europe or who were backpacking through Europe. We met a lot of people from Australia (the campsite was mostly run by Australians) and Canada, and there were a lot of French people there too which was cool!

After meeting some people, we all decided to head into the city and explore a little. We knew the festival would be crazy at that point in the afternoon and we probably wouldn't be able to get into a tent, so we headed to the city center and Old Munich instead. First we got some snacks and I got a chicken sandwich on a bagel that ended up being so delicious! Then we walked around and explored a little. We saw some cool buildings and loved seeing all the people walking around in their traditional German lederhosen and dirndls! There was also one street where we passed 5 H&M's within about a minute of each other which I thought was funny! After a while, we decided to stop for dinner and have some traditional German food. I split a big serving of schnitzel with Kirsten and Virginia. I had never had schnitzel before so I didn't know if I would like it (and I wasn't even completely sure what it was!) but it was so good and by the time we were done eating it we all wished we had more! After dinner, we headed back to Stoke to party! We had some more sangria and met a lot more people. It got pretty crazy! There were some guys drinking beer out of an umbrella and at the bar there was a wheel that you could spin, and each number you could land on had some sort of crazy thing you had to do. Some examples are having to do a beer bong, make out with someone, drink out of a shoe, take off your underwear and hang it over the bar, let someone give you a haircut, and so many other crazy things! I knew it would end badly if I spun the wheel so I decided to stay away from it!

with Virginia and Kirsten in front of the really cool-looking church in Munich center

riding the pig outside the restaurant where we got dinner

The next day, we got an early start to go to the festival and hopefully get into a tent! Unless you have a reservation in a tent, it's really hard to get in and you usually have to wait outside for a while. We would have made a reservation but you need to do that months in advance. We got there around 10, but still had to wait in a huge crowd that pushed and shoved for over 2 hours to get inside!! There was no line, they just let groups in at random. Whoever said that Germans are efficient definitely didn't go to Oktoberfest! Once we got inside though, it was definitely worth it. There were people cheering and dancing up on benches, and as soon as we got in, one of the waitresses brought us each a huge "stein" of beer. We walked around for a while and got some food, and eventually we managed to grab a spot at a table. We sat there for a couple of hours dancing up on the benches and talking to the drunk guys that kept coming over to us! Some of the guys were nice, but some tried hitting on us and were so persistent when we weren't interested. It was also Kirsten's 21st birthday, so we celebrated that! It was really fun, but at 2:30, they made everybody in our section leave to make room for the people who had reservations.

the archway leading into the festival!

the outside of our beer tent

inside the beer tent

all of our steins (that's what they call the huge mugs that are the size of 2 pints)

After that, we walked through the festival some more and got a snack from a stand that had chocolate-covered everything (pretty much my definition of heaven). I got chocolate-covered strawberries that were by far the most delicious ones I had ever had! After that, half of our group went back to the campsite because they were so tired, but three of us tried going into another tent. We waited for almost two hours and then decided to give up and go back to Stoke when it seemed like we weren't going to get into the tent. It took us a while to find our bus and we almost missed the last Stoke bus of the night, but we managed to find it right as they were about to pull away! Back at the campsite, we got a free barbecue dinner and met some more people. We met some people who have friends at Elon who I know, which was really cool! We hung out for a while and got to bed earlier than the night before because we were all so tired!

we met some guys who were dressed like Smurfs!

On Sunday morning, it was raining so we slept in and then headed into the city for a little while before we had to catch our flight back to Lyon. We got some souvenirs and bratwurst hot dogs for lunch. Then we went to a little coffee shop where I got a hot chocolate and a little piece of chocolate cake. After that, we headed back to the airport and came back to Lyon! My weekend in Munich was so much fun, but it also made me realise how much I missed Lyon and all the people there! It made me appreciate being back, but it also made me sad thinking about how I will have to leave in a couple of months. I'll just need to make sure I really appreciate my time here and live every moment to the fullest!